Award-winning comedian Anne Edmonds returned to the Brisbane Powerhouse (11 March) with her latest hour of comedy ‘No Offence, None Taken’.
Anne Edmonds lives off dysfunction. That’s the impression the audience gets from the anxious mind behind ‘No Offence, None Taken’.
What the audience also learns is Anne can channel her dysfunctional mind to create a brilliant hour of comedy, leaving audiences laughing so hard they begin to snort, wheeze, and make other indescribable noises.
‘No Offence, None Taken’ is a framed as a series of stories and morbid thoughts Anne shares with her friend trying to sleep as they share a bunk bed on a holiday in Vanuatu. Anne over shares her life to her tired friend, with topics such as shoe shopping to deaths caused by bunk beds springing forth from Anne’s mouth.
The frame of the late-night conversation is a brilliant touch, giving her dark and scattered thoughts the illusion of order. And boy, do they get dark!
Anne does give fair warning for her black humour by bravely opening with a politically incorrect one-liner about weight-loss. Just as shocking is the delight on her face after delivering it, showing not maliciousness, but cheekiness. Even when talking about a 'Tim' with a shit personality, her cheek made me agree behind laughter that yes, I might have a shit personality.
Early in Anne’s career, media often described her as a character comedian. But now she is a master of the form. Rather than simply announcing her impression and then doing it, Anne flows into them seamlessly during her stories, with her voice and face morphing instantly to present a completely new person.
She captures the quirks of her characters in a way which gives them more depth, making them even funnier. A dad trying to impress other tourists with a gym plank becomes more ridiculous as Anne goes from tall and confident to showing his failure in short, dismissive mumblings, leading to angry barking about his failures as a top bloke.
Anne’s entire show has routines constantly weaving in and around each other, with call-backs to previous routines appearing in others throughout.
Earlier in the show, Anne talked about her too-serious commitment to awful men, with it later popping up out of nowhere while she questioned how people in medieval times dreams.
Anne’s routine take off when her anxiety leads to over thinking situations; in her hands, a loose, bunk-bed screw leads to a manslaughter charge and a hilarious skit featuring prisoners planning a revenge, bunk-bed death.
Anne Edmonds has a tight grasp on the hilarious quirks of Australian characters, unlike the “most famous Australian comedian” and one of the targets of Anne’s rage, Jim Jefferies. ‘No Offence, None Taken’ is a masterclass in hilarity, featuring brilliant writing and eccentric characters.
Anne Edmonds makes a great case why dysfunction makes for a fuller life, and why having her as a bunk mate will lead to a sleepless night filled with rib-cracking laughter.
Anne will perform at Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Sydney Comedy Festival later in 2017..
